Episode 32: Netflix, Please Give Us TARS and Coop! | Interstellar (2014)

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It turns out that Caitlin and Nicole have multiple rocket scientist friends! Longtime friend of the podcast Space Nicole joins our hosts along with newtime friend of the podcast Grant to discuss the Nolan space behemoth, Interstellar. There is … a lot to unpack in this movie. Some of the science is surprisingly good, which makes sense considering that Nolan consulted with actual physicists during the production of the film (Flash writers, take notes). Some of the science is, well, odd, to say the least. Join our crew of intrepid science friends as they journey into a discussion of rockets, docking, relativity, time, black holes, whatever the heck “the blight” is, and the possibly horrible truth behind this secret science program headed by a bunch of all-American scientists(?)

Also, Nicole came up for an idea for a TARS and Cooper-themed spin-off television show, complete with theme song, because of course she did. Does anyone know someone at Netflix we can pitch this to? #TARSandCoop

Link to Grant’s blog, Quiet Evangelism

Articles

General

• Interview with Nobel-prize-winning physicist Kip Thorne, who consulted with Christopher Nolan in the making of Interstellar

• Discussion with physicists on the science of Interstellar (yes, yes, I know this is in The Daily Mail)

Rockets and Spacecraft

• Grant mentioned how power and life support were linked in managing Apollo 13 during its return to Earth. There’s more information on that and every other minute detail of the mission on Apollo in Real Time: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13

• In the context of rookies in space, Grant mentioned the Skylab 4 “mutiny.” This article provides a decent introduction: https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-that-day-three-nasa-astronauts-20151228-column.html

• More info on Gemini 8, which was kinda sorta the Interstellar docking scene in reverse: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/geminis-first-docking-turns-to-wild-ride-in-orbit

Wormholes and Black Holes

• Rotating Black Holes May Serve as Gentle Portals for Hyperspace Travel

• Very cool piece about the research that went into the wormhole and black hole visual effects: https://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-black-hole

• Article about the image captured of the black hole that went viral last year

• Discussion on whether “gentle black holes” exist (yes, yes, I know this is on Reddit, but the top commenter cites Kip Thorne)

• Muse’s “Supermassive Black Hole” (This has nothing to do with Interstellar, but Grant sent it to me, and I put whatever is sent to me on the website :)

Magical Space Planets

• Rogue waves, relating to Planet #1 (not mentioned in episode, but Caitlin wants you to know she looked it up): https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/roguewaves.html

• Are floating clouds real? (No)

• Are floating clouds real, part 2? (Still no)

• Are floating clouds real, part 3? (Check the comments, Kip Thorne says this part makes him cringe)

Dust Bowl Aesthetic

• NPR bit about the dust bowls that mentions the footage being used in Interstellar: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2014/11/14/364084008/dust-bowls-arent-just-an-interstellar-thing

Science Corner

• NASA Selects Blue Origin, Dynetics, and SpaceX Human Landers for Artemis

• Article on the launch of China’s crewed space capsule

• News report about SpaceX launch

• News report about failed Virgin Orbit launch

• Coronavirus testing via Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (NSFW for swearing): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rl4c-jr7g0

• PBS article about how the moon landing couldn't be faked with the video/film tech we had in the 1960s: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/apollo-landing-footage-would-have-been-impossible-to-fake-a-film-expert-explains-why

• Here's the video with a filmmaker breaking the moon landing down: https://youtu.be/_loUDS4c3Cs

• Article about classical musicians versus copyright bots

• Another article about classical musicians versus copyright bots

Grant also had this to say about his calculations regarding the Endurance:

“As far as my ‘analysis’ of Endurance’s capabilities goes, it was along the following lines:

Assume Endurance is powered by nuclear thermal rockets with a specific impulse of 1,000 seconds. That means they make 1,000 pounds of thrust per pound (mass) of propellant burned per second. This is in the ballpark for a high performance but not terribly exotic (ordinary solid core, nothing fancy like a fluid reactor core) nuclear thermal rocket, and gives an exhaust speed of 9.8 km/s.

Assume Endurance has a propellant mass fraction of about 86%, meaning 86% of its initial starting mass is liquid hydrogen propellant. This is sporty for a spacecraft, but easily doable for a spacecraft built like a rocket (probably wouldn’t survive that spin though).

Plugging this into the rocket equation (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation) yields a vehicle that can accelerate over the course of the mission to twice its exhaust speed (assuming no refueling). So the total delta-v Endurance can achieve is 19.6 km/s.

Looking at Wikipedia’s handy table of Hohmann transfers (minimum delta-v required) from low Earth orbit, I see a delta-v of at least 3.6 km/s required to leave Earth for Mars.

Making the completely unwarranted assumption that all maneuvers are about the same magnitude of the Earth to Mars burn, there’s budget for about five and a half maneuvers.

Is any of that at all reasonable? Who knows? But I had fun thinking about it.”